Top all-time · #552
Dave Rupert
Personal blog · daverupert.comwebprogramming
Dave Rupert's personal blog at daverupert.com covers web and programming. Since 2010, 108 different Hacker News readers have linked it 157 times, most often “Technical debt as a lack of understanding”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-26, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (22) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Dave Rupert's posts for practical web development and open-source commentary, and for his #davegoeswindows series on switching from Mac to Windows.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 22 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The personal blog of Dave Rupert, web developer and podcaster from Austin, TX.
Most-linked posts?
- Technical debt as a lack of understanding4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-11-02
- What is the value of browser diversity?4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-09-05
- /2023/02/solved-the-case-of-the-bing-ban-theory/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-02-09
- UI = f(statesⁿ)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-02-16
- This website has been gaslighting you3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-01-20
- One-offs and low-expectations with Safari3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-07-28
- Hard Costs of Third-Party Scripts2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-10-23
- The Web is industrialized and I helped industrialize it2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-01
- So you want to make a new JavaScript framework2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-01-20
- #EdgeGoesChromium2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-12-11
What Hacker News says?
> I’ve always been involved in my work, being proactive in bringing new technologies, mentoring the other developers, helping the team to grow, but I was doing this just because I liked my job. I was not considering this as something important in my career, simply because I didn’t want too. To develop my career, I was spending a lot of time outside work reading technical books, doing toy projects, going to meetups,…
Comment linking /2020/01/the-web-is-industrialized-and-i-helped-industrialize-it/
on “Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job”Submitted Technical debt as a lack of understanding as a story · 661 points
HN discussionThat website/page is a bit weird. It seems to be based on a TV show[basedon]? What I assume is the actual IBM report[0] might interest you. [0] https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10275139... [basedon] https://daverupert.com/2015/06/doherty-threshold/
Comment linking /2015/06/doherty-threshold/
on “YouTube embeds are heavy and it’s fixable”Submitted Git Diagramming "The Weave" as a story · 282 points
HN discussionReading Dave's ( https://daverupert.com/tag/davegoeswindows ) experience switching to Windows turned me off considering it as an option. However I've ordered an Eve V so will try it out when that comes later in the year.
Comment linking /tag/davegoeswindows
on “Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X”Submitted UI = f(statesⁿ) as a story · 168 points
HN discussionI’ve tried similar myself but I love the visual simplicity of this. Much nicer than a list. If you’re interested I came across this year’s ago … some nice inspirations and ways of finding new stuff. https://tomcritchlow.com/wiki/books/bookshelves/ My favourite is this one with the little toggle for reviews or comments: https://daverupert.com/bookshelf/
Comment linking /bookshelf/
on “I made a virtual bookshelf”Submitted Initial Impressions of WSL 2 as a story · 154 points
HN discussionThere have been many that have hit the front page over the years. If you're not aware of a technology's shortcomings then you're a bad proponent of said technology. They're also almost the antithesis of what the HTMX crowd also preaches as "the one true way" and meanwhile, Wordpressers will continue developing the majority of the world's websites blissfully unaware that either technology even exists. https://dev.to/…
Comment linking /2023/07/why-not-webcomponents/
on “Lit: a library for building fast, lightweight web components”Submitted What is the value of browser diversity? as a story · 149 points
HN discussionI thought the most important part of the article wasn't about the missing API. ( Many of them are draft status ) It was the buggy implementation of a feature that go unfix for years [0]. It say it is supported only to find out it really doesn't. Or those one-offs, I think [1] is a much better take on the problem. And as a Web page browser. I dont have much complain. But in terms of Web Apps .... there is where the f…
Comment linking /2021/07/safari-one-offs/
on “A critique of Safari's influence on the web”Submitted I wish you the best in the Offline as a story · 85 points
HN discussionReminds me of "tech debt as a lack of understanding" https://daverupert.com/2020/11/technical-debt-as-a-lack-of-u... > If there’s been enough organizational turnover or enough feature creep in a product, then maybe doing a rewrite is the best option so your team has a collective understanding of the code. You can’t expect people to be productive in something that was a culmination of [complicated "here be dragons" c…
Comment linking /2020/11/technical-debt-as-a-lack-of-understanding/
on “Best practices can slow your application down”Submitted Transpiled For-Of Loops Are Bad for the Client as a story · 82 points
HN discussionIs this a response to UI = f(statesⁿ)[1] or are they both a response to something else? 1: https://daverupert.com/2024/02/ui-states/
Comment linking /2024/02/ui-states/
on “UI is a function of your organization”Submitted The web is a harsh manager as a story · 75 points
HN discussionAs discussed in the podcast ShopTalk Show [0], of which Chris Coyer is a host. this is actually a more complex idea than this article let’s on, a corollary article from the co-host of that show, Dave Rupert, on why it’s a difficult idea and maybe not the best thing to do[1] To quote the article: > tl;dr - <summary> is a button and buttons eat semantics [0]: https://shoptalkshow.com [1]: https://daverupert.com/2019/1…
Comment linking /2019/12/why-details-is-not-an-accordion/
on “Using <details> for menus and dialogs (2019)”Submitted Bad month for the main thread as a story · 74 points
HN discussionReminds me of several people that peeled off the covering on the Pocket Chip, thinking it was a sort of protector. You can see the bubbling in this picture which could lead someone to believe they should remove it. https://daverupert.com/images/posts/2017/IMG_1194.JPG
Comment linking /images/posts/2017/IMG_1194.JPG
on “Samsung's folding phone breaks for reviewers”Submitted I'm Shadow Banned by DuckDuckGo (and Bing) as a story · 45 points
HN discussionI really liked an article on the subject of sustainability in open source by Dave Rupert. See https://daverupert.com/2021/12/sustaining-maintaining/ One of the of the points Rupert drives home is that open source with the goal of sustainability doesn’t have a framework in place that doesn’t lead to burnout. Everyone just learns lessons the hard way without any real manual for successful outcomes.
Comment linking /2021/12/sustaining-maintaining/
on “The burden of an Open Source maintainer”Submitted The React Is “just” JavaScript Myth as a story · 41 points
HN discussionThere are hiccups, but as a general statement I stand by it. "Node is pretty impressive on Windows. You get the feeling that JavaScript (as well as HTML and CSS) are a first class citizen in the Operating System. I already have a list of dozens of Native Windows Apps I want to build using Node." http://daverupert.com/2015/08/developing-on-windows/ (good contrast with other experiences from a polyglot) "Node is quite…
Comment linking /2015/08/developing-on-windows/
on “Habits of a Happy Node Hacker”Submitted Happier HTML5 Form Validation as a story · 36 points
HN discussionHaha, yes flex apps definitely had a feel to them! It's easy to criticize but remember, this was back in the days of supporting IE6 and XHR was still relatively new! Flex's standard UI library was filled with bluish-gray gradients and verdana :) Here's an article which has a screenshot with a bunch of controls: https://daverupert.com/2023/02/the-case-for-flex-application...
Comment linking /2023/02/the-case-for-flex-applications/
on “Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source”Submitted What I Learned From Side Projects as a story · 33 points
HN discussionThis keeps happening. Just a few of many examples: https://daverupert.com/2023/01/shadow-banned-by-duckduckgo-a... https://www.jessesquires.com/blog/2022/03/25/my-website-disa... https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/bing.html
Comment linking /2023/01/shadow-banned-by-duckduckgo-and-bing/
on “Techdirt has been deleted from Bing and DuckDuckGo”Submitted CSS Wants to Be a System as a story · 17 points
HN discussionTo each their own! We were motivated to blog about it by others who have had issues like this: https://daverupert.com/2023/02/solved-the-case-of-the-bing-b... And at the end of the day, we got a lot of great SEO tips here. Thanks HN!
Comment linking /2023/02/solved-the-case-of-the-bing-ban-theory/
on “We compete with GitHub. Bing does not show our website”Submitted The Economy? He died five years ago as a story · 12 points
HN discussion
